1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a purchase checkout station to be utilized to enable consumers at a self-service store to shop independently and quickly, and easily checkout their purchase items themselves while assuring that maximum security is maintained in the stare.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional checkout stations inmost self-service stores involve the individual scanning of each product brought to the checkout station by the consumer. Specifically, a consumer will gather all items they desire to purchase, place them on the checkout station on a conveyor or like movable surface where they are presented to a store employee who takes each item selected by the consumer and scans its bar code. After scanning, the store employee then places the object on a ramp or second conveyor where it moves to a bagging area for manual bagging by the cashier, another store employee or the consumer. While these procedures are substantially improved over what was previously necessitated, namely the numeric entry of the price of each item by the store employee, this conventional type of checkout can still be quite time-consuming. Accordingly, there is a need for an improved checkout station which can substantially increase checkout efficiency by allowing a consumer to scan items themselves, either through a portable hand held scanner or at the checkout station, and by providing immediate automatic bagging of scanned items, while ensuring efficient checkout and store security.
The checkout station of the present invention is adapted specifically to allow for the increased consumer independence, and to eliminate limits on checkout volume which relate to the need for having at least one store employee at each checkout station, and thus overcomes many of the problems associated with the related art.